No connection between Spirited Away and Jiufen

I was led to believe this but now I've come to learn it's not true. In the video here, Miyazaki debunks the rumor. He says that he just looked around where he lives to draw inspiration--and, you know, his imagination. Kinda sad to learn this but oh well. I can still think of Jiufen as a kind of real-life Spirited Away though :)

He was talking about when he did Totoro. He doesn't really clearly say where he got the inspiration for Spirited Away, but he does say 同じような風景がいっぱいある (there are many similar sceneries [in the world]).

Basically he says it's a coincidence.

I do have to admit that some of the scenery, especially the night market leading up to the bathhouse, is very similar looking to Taiwanese night markets, and the lanterns are very 九份 esque. Even the kind of whole chicken/bird looking food they serve isn't something you see much of in Japan (as opposed to the entire goose heads seen in Taiwan), so I can see why people suggest Taiwan was the inspiration.

It could also easily be that he's been to Taiwan and was somewhat inspired by it or something, but he just isn't conscious about it or doesn't want to cheapen his imagination by admitting that he got it from somewhere.

Of course the entire setup - a giant bathhouse for gods (kami) is very Japanese in nature. The buildings (especially the bathhouse itself) looks more like an old Japanese castle or hot springs place than anything else. The sit-down-and-eat style of the shops are also more similar to Japanese yatai than the usual night market setups in Taiwan. I'd say the one thing that's very Chinese-looking is the rows of red lanterns, but some Japanese shops have that and that could be seen in China Towns in Japan as well.

Actually I've never really thought it through that much, but yeah it seems like the claims that it was modeled after 九份 are pretty weak, since the creator himself says "dude I just made it up," and it's clear there's plenty of scenery in Japan (which he obviously has seen more of) that could have been the inspiration.

If I remember correctly, the whole thing started as internet rumor when Spirited Away came out in 2001, along with some other crazy rumors related to Miyazaki's work, such as claiming the movie was actually depicting the life of sex worker Japan, or "proving" My Neighbor Totoro was based on a Japan murder case.... etc. Somehow Taiwan mainstream media picked up the Jiufen story and broadcast it 24/7 without fact check, and most people just accepted it.

Interesting enough, Jiufen's tourism was actually started by another movie. The mountain city was on top of gold and coal mines, and Jiufen's economy had been relied on mining since 1890s. However, the city was declining after local coal mines went out of business in the mid 1980s (A series of mining accidents in 1984 took about 300 worker's life in that year alone, causing the government to revamp the regulation and thus making the mining business dwindle and eventually closed). Fortunately, Hou Hsiao-hsien's 1989 movie "A City of Sadness" not only brought Jiufen back to the spotlight but also brought tourists to the city. Locals utilized this opportunity and transform Jiufen from a mining city into a tourist attraction we see today.

TIL. I was also always told Spirited Away was based on Joufen as if it was a given fact, and considering the number of tourists that go there, just assumed it must be true. Even my Japanese classmates repeated the myth, and visited there because of it.